Commentary: The audacity to reverse Reaganomics

You might or might not call it hope, but you have to concede it's audacious.

President Obama's proposed 10-year, $3.6 trillion spending plan, announced last week, would reverse the past 30 years of failed, Reagan-esque government philosophy. Assuming the country can afford it – for now that's unknowable – there's much in the plan to like.

Goodbye – and good riddance – to "trickle-down," the theory that more money for the rich eventually creates more money for the poor. It has "been discredited once and for all," Obama's budget plan states. Indeed, evidence shows that for 30 years, income inequality in America has grown. From 1979 to 2005, after-tax income for the top 1 percent of households rose 176 percent; for the bottom fifth it rose only 6 percent.

And hello, "trickle-up." Obama's proposal takes welcome aim at that growing income inequality, cutting taxes for families earning less than $250,000 a year and raising taxes for families earning more.